FOUR young Warrington women have secured places at two of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the country.

Kayleigh Allen, Georgia Brown, Yi Chen Hock and Sophie Johnson – who all studied at A-levels at Priestley College – have received offers from either Oxford or Cambridge.

For Kayleigh the hope is that reading geography at Cambridge will be her passport to seeing the natural world.

The former Great Sankey High School student said: “I want to go on to make nature documentaries, which is a competitive area to get into.

“I’ve always wanted to see the world and I hope by making documentaries I can inspire others the way I have been inspired.”

Roughly one in five applicants receive an Oxbridge offer.

This year, all of Priestley’s Cambridge applicants were successful.

Georgia, who was a pupil at Cardinal Newman, studied A-level History, French and English Literature at Priestley. Now she is going to read history and French at Oxford – a course that accepted only 20 people this year.

She said: “I'm excited about going into more depth with each subject and exploring different areas of history as well as being around people who have the same interests as me."

Cambridge is the destination for former Bridgewater High School pupil Yi Chen who will be studying engineering.

She finished her A-level programme of music, electronics, maths, Chinese, further maths, the extended project and physics in 2018, but has taken a year out to work in industry.

Yi Chen said: “I think the year out has given me time to prepare for university and make sure I am certain about the path I want to take."

Sophie and her family were reduced to tears when news of her offer to study human, social and political sciences at Cambridge came through.

The former Bridgewater High pupil said: “There’s a chance I might want to go into politics, but I am not set on that yet and the course I am doing will give me a lot of options.”

All of the Priestley applicants have taken part in initiatives such as the Graduate, HE + and the Pembroke North Oxford programme, which are designed to raise aspirations and prepare them for the university application process.

Senior tutor Mark Salmon said: “All of these are designed to ensure our students make a competitive application to some of the most prestigious universities in the world.

“This commitment to the students reflects our determination to inspire them and make them realise their outstanding potential.”